The present invention relates to writing information to magnetic media, and more particularly, this invention relates to compensating for crosstalk between nearby writers.
In magnetic storage systems, data is read from and written onto magnetic recording media utilizing magnetic transducers commonly. Data is written on the magnetic recording medium by moving a magnetic recording transducer to a position over the medium where the data is to be stored. The magnetic recording transducer then reverses the polarity of the magnetic field, creating a magnetic transition. These transition are used to encode data into the magnetic medium. Data is read from the medium by similarly positioning the magnetic read transducer and then sensing the magnetic field generated by the transition in the magnetic medium. Read and write operations may be independently synchronized with the movement of the medium to ensure that the data can he read from and written to the desired location on the media.
An important and continuing goal in the data storage industry is that of increasing the density of data stored on a medium. For magnetic storage systems such as tape- and disk-based storage, that goal has lead to increasing the track density on the recording medium, and decreasing the thickness of the magnetic medium. In tape storage systems, multiple tracks are written simultaneously using an array of transducers. To design this array, the environmental operating conditions of the drive must be considered to ensure that under the expansion and contraction of the tape medium all of the transducers remain on track. This ultimately places a limit on the span of the transducer array. As the track densities increase, the span must be reduced, which results in closer pitched elements. Additionally, the number of channels in tape systems generally increase over time. This further reduces the transducer pitch as all of the channels must fit into the same span.
However, as the spacing between the writers becomes small, crosstalk between write transducers occurs as magnetic flux from each writer affect the written pattern produced by its neighbors. The crosstalk causes a shift in the location of the magnetic transitions produced by the writers and results in a poor write quality.
It would be favorable to reduce or eliminate this crosstalk between nearby heads to improve writing operation efficiency and accuracy. However, conventional wisdom dictates that it is desirable to create each channel to operate independently of all other channels.